Shalom, Mr Ahmadinejad

[Aemilius Paulus]

Your generalizations are what they are, generalizations. Different groups of people at different points in history have different reactions, actions, and motivations.

True, and I cannot argue against that. Although I am utterly stunned time after time at the seeming hostility and negative sentiments towards generalisations. I swear, I have yet to meet anyone with a penchant or even an acceptance of generalisations... As a historian or any sort of analyst, you have to generalise. One cannot examine every single fact. One has to compare one event to another in hopes of drawing parallels.

That is the only logical solution I can discern, aside from pure speculation. No matter what the multitude of the facts one possesses, past history should be the defining argument in a projection. I believe that only history can answer the Iranian issue, for in history, Iran is as common as snow in the Himalayas.


However, to be more fair, one should exhibit bias towards more recent events, as times do change, although not as radically as some may perceive. Another such modern revolution is the Rose one, in Georgia. Result -Saakashvili. You decide. Needless to say, both him and Yushchenko, especially the latter, have approval ratings approaching zero Kelvin (16% and 7% respectively).


Iran, not unlike the other two, has a sizeable, almost or more than equal opposition, in size. In voice, in influence, the opposition is yet more omnipotent, as the opposition is firmly entrenched, corporate, and generally composed of high-ranking individuals who have prospered in the preceding system. The two “Colour” Revolutions were popular ones, and regrettably, the public has low tolerance for undercoming matching by a yet lower patience. Few if any can distinguish long-term benefits. I cannot. I am no politologist or economist. I may speculate, but I am merely another citizen.

Iran is not the Ukraine. .

Well, now, I would like to see you say the same for Georgia and Ukraine Eh?

For one thing, it does not have a grumpy superpower on its immediate border, holding the reins of the military, gas and oil, etc. Also, unlike Ukraine or Russia, Iran has a long history of a middle class, a reverence for education and a distinct religious tradition that sets it apart from its neighbors.

I can buy all of that except reverence for education. Russians and Ukrainians, regardless of the attitudes towards intellectualism, heavily favour education in the most direct sense - post-secondary erudition. In Russia and Ukraine, as well as in all of USSR education is the key to adult life. Nearly every non-manual/blue collar worker has at least one post-secondary degree. You must have it if you wish to be something other than a common labourer. Finally, the literacy rates in former USSR nations are the highest in the world - Russia is on the 5th place, tied with four other nations. Iran has 82.4% literacy rate. Russia has 99.4%.

Also, the primary force in the demonstrations, if you believe the blogs, tweets and reports coming out of Iran, was not young students, but rather women. That has huge meaning, none of it easily condensed into generalizations.

I most certainly do not trust someone in the middle of the event, a heavily biased and fallible propagandist to know what the composition of the event was, and then use hodgepodge self-reported accounts of varying validity, accuracy, and precision from some regions but not the others, to assess the country-wide data. That is unless by “reports” you mean respected news organisations who (hopefully) relied on something more plausible to determine the ethnic and gender makeup.

Try to find (if you can and wish) statistics on the makeup of the protesters, and then I will further deliberate on this. For now, I cannot accept your assertion. Without a doubt, the role of women was emphasised, not merely recorded from an objective point of view. But you may still be correct. I cannot say anything right now, because I do not have the statistic.

Honestly, I think you're applying your very real and sobering experience with the Orange Revolution and assuming that most of the lessons learned apply to the Green. By that same logic, if you lived through the French Revolution, you'd be utterly convinced that the American Revolution would eventually lead to auto-genocide.

You certainly have a point. I am overusing the Orange and Rose Revolutions. But that is all I have, and you are not presenting much current hard evidence… Nevertheless, you do have a point, despite your lack of relevant data. That said, I will debate your French Revolution assertion.

The key factor here that you did not take into judgement that you should have was the fact that American Revolution was a fight for independence from another entity, a separate political organisation in a different place. American revolution was a war of secession. That is one, very distinct category.

The other is the change of government, which was the French Revolution. Those types of revolts are almost always doomed to some manner of a failure, historically and logically - since in a change of gov’t uprising you normally have stronger opposition which can always strike back and return to the past structure with greater ease than say, Loyalists/Tories could gain America back for Britain.

Lastly, a sizable chunk of the Iranian population has been marching, fighting and dying for greater freedom. Maybe I'm just being a typical American, but I think that deserves some respect.

You Americans and freedom . So noble, idealistic and yet so naïve at times… There is freedom and then there is American version of freedom. For one, there is always a “sizable chunk” “marching” or “dying” for something. Al Qaeda is marching and (you can bet a dollar to doughnut!) dying for what, in their view is a holy vision of world according to what Allah, the Creator of all humans and Universe mandated. That does not make it right nevertheless. Nor is truth defined by the number of people who believe it is true (although I am apt to pessimistically concur with that sobering statement).

Many a crusade exist in this world - we are in no manner obligated to respect them. Why should we? Politics is dirty business. No matter what you replace with what, the end result is not normally much better than the beginning - at the best. I am not insisting we should stop all change and progress, but I am chastising those who are overeager, overzealous, and overoptimistic.

Why not respect the other side of Iranian politics, the ones supporting status quo? And what is freedom? Really. Because there is not much of it outside the First World. Coups in the Third and Second Worlds do not lead to more freedom, but to more instability and a whole host of other effects, some positive, most not.

Nonsense, it's a good read, and I hope many Orgahs do take the time.

Thank you . To be complimented by a moderator is an honour I receive for the first time.


God, another tl;dr post. While it may not be utter rubbish, I do feel as if I am impeding the thread development. Although in theory, everyone should not complain because someone actually takes time to formulate their posts...